Adel’s Blog

So in my previous post, we got to find out who a journalist is according to many authors. “It is the stories of a journalist that constructs and maintains our shared reality(cf.Carey,1989)”.

Being a Journalist entails you being truthful.Brain McNair says,first,journalism lays claims to the qualities of truthfulness and accuracy. This is to say that ,when you look at the principles of journalism it talks about truthfulness and accuracy.These two are most important principles when it comes to the practice of journalism.

Being truthful as a journalist is about being balanced and not biased, you should balance the story. As a journalist, you must set aside personal feelings, you should not attach your emotions completely when disseminating an information.

Let’s come to being objective, objectivity is that state of mind that journalists acquire to make them fair , neutral observers of events and issues. Say the news as it is , nothing should be removed or added, no matter who and where the information is coming from or about.

This point talks about “NEWNESS”. In the newness of information,McNair is of the opinion that journalism tells us things we did not already know,and when I say tells us I mean the SOCIETY .

The news that is brought to the notice of the society or people should not be an old news it should be new or current. The people are interested in what they do not know.

Journalism is Journalism because it has an author . So news stories without authors are not journalism.At all cost a news story should have an author.

Journalism is an authored narrative because the story was written by somebody, and the person must show up. The author adds credibility to the story.

Finally, the social world of Journalism.The social here talks about human beings living in the society. It’s about social relationships and interactions in the society.

REFERENCES

Cf.Carey(1989), Brian McNair(1998)